DEMENTIA CARE: CHRISTMAS CAME EARLY.

Set-up is firmly established. One fridge-freezer for the food. Cupboards for tinned goods. Second fridge with a modest freezer compartment as an emergency measure if the main fridge suddenly dies.
   But the second fridge serves another purpose. If it is switched on, you should put stuff in there. No point having an empty fridge, unless you’ve cleared it to clean it. And so. In anticipation of the milkpocalypse, the second fridge stores the milk reserve.
   Should society collapse and we see no milk delivered that week, there’s always the milk reserve. Lately, I’ve been chipping away at the extra milk bottles in there. Main milk deliveries were down a bottle or two bottles with minor supermarket shortages.
   Even without the odd short delivery, I’d be chipping away at the reserve. The regular milk supply lasts a week. But I make sure the more expensive reserve is of the long-life variety. Those smaller bottles can go for months without being opened, provided they are kept chilled. They have to be gradually used up and replaced by the next reserve.
   I have an independent thermometer inside the smaller fridge, to warn of unexpected temperature increases. Is the small fridge still working? The large fridge has its own temperature sign on the door. But the small fridge gives the impression of being the clockwork version of a machine, next to the sleek Bugatti of the fridge-freezer.
   The constant cycle of replenishing weekly milk weekly and reserve milk in small doses was interrupted in the past week. No milk came. And no alternative was offered. This meant I’d lean heavily on the reserve.
   It was borderline. I couldn’t trust it to last, after it was chipped away the week before. Luckily, I could order regular milk. The problem here is that the weekly milk is strawberry. It’s a taste thing. Those with dementia usually retreat from savoury products and take only sweet ones. Strawberry milk is the last line of defence.
   On top of that, it’s easiest to mix with strawberry milkshakes provided by the nutritionist. This is a damned good arrangement of flavours. And if the strawberry milk isn’t available, there’s little to no attempt to replace it.
   Occasionally, we get the chocolate milk. And chocolate is no good – except for me. The last delivery didn’t even pay lip service to the chocolate alternative. What was there? Just a void, where the bottle rack in the fridge didn’t have any milk waiting.
   That’s what the reserve is for. This moment. The milkpocalypse. But I didn’t want to trust the reserve all by itself. True, I was now supplied with the small bottles of build-up drink. But you need to mix those with milk. Can’t take them on their own.
   Checks and balances. Swings and roundabouts. Ups and downs. Flexible plans. I had a flexible plan. In emergencies, I could go to town.
   Shudder.
   Going to town increases the risk of bringing Covid back to the house. No good. The other emergency plan is to order more milk from the supermarket for delivery the next day if possible. I checked that out by making an order and choosing a delivery slot.
   Here’s the thing. There’s a minimum order to avoid that extra charge. I am buying two large bottles of milk to see our way through the milkpocalypse. That’s it. I want to avoid that charge. So I have to buy loads of stuff. What the fuck do I buy? I’ve just taken delivery of the week’s shopping. I can’t order another week’s shopping.
   Solution. I start shopping for Christmas. Toilet roll supplies are good, but I do need to top up in the next week. Just bring that order forward. It isn’t Christmassy, but it is a start. Milk. Check. Toilet roll. Check. Flashbacks to the great toilet roll crisis at the start of Covid. What a bunch of dicks those people were.
   We’re covered for toilet roll now. That leaves. Christmas supplies. Tinned goods that will keep until the end of time itself. I know from Covid year to Covid year that it was a good idea to lay Christmas supplies in early…
   When I went to do that, I found there was already a bit of a supply problem. I’d come back to order again and again as December drew near. Eventually, before December hit, I would just about manage to be supplied. All the tins. The jars. Frozen food.
   You can’t leave it until the last second. I mean, you couldn’t before Covid. But after. Fuck no. And so, I began the minor harvest. The gathering of the cans. Festive drinks in boxes of cans. Sorted now. A few items for the cupboards. Those milk bottles for the fridge. Enough toilet rolls to decorate a Christmas tree in garlands if that’s where we are headed.
   No. It’s a fire hazard. Of course not.
   Yes. Christmas came early. Autumn chill. Thinking about putting the heating on. Never an option in September. And the first two weeks in September saw a heatwave this year. It’s a mild October day as I type away. Time to arrange the winter heating bonus, if the website is open. What else?
   This week, I must tackle the problem of arranging a fresh milk supply. And I have to reconstruct the milk reserve. I might be forced to go back in and do a double order all over again. The last order was woeful. A record number of items just disappeared from the baskets when they were delivered.
   Just not available. No replacement offers. If the supermarket had a deal going, the chant was don’t worry, you still get your discount. And then there were more things that didn’t make it to the basket, but they were replaced. Not always ideally, either. Don’t worry, we still got the discount there as well.
   Chaos. When it comes to deliveries, we’re playing Russian Roulette. The Tsar’s version. He was rich enough to afford six bullets for the revolver. Pay your money. Place your bets. You’ll be delivered something.
   I don’t care what’s delivered as long as the special supply of milk arrives. What does this mean for the next delivery? I have to order the regular stuff. Hope it arrives. I have to order the reserve bottles. And they’ve been in short supply. That was another reason the reserve was chipped away. I did make a few resupply orders, but they were short of bottles on delivery.
   It’s always a problem when the reserve is hit. That’s the point of the reserve. You have no milk in the basket. Switch to the emergency stash. Wow. It’s gone. At least none of the reserve bottles is going to run past its use-by date, though. The system needs a good clearout, every now and again.
   The difficulty is that deliveries are so unpredictable. I may have to work out really advanced orders this year, so that I could, in theory, skip deliveries entirely over the festive season. The space is there in two fridges for that. Provided both fridges work.
   Well. That’s it. I am on the Christmas shopping trail, now. Luckily, a lot of the festive stuff is tinned or preserved in jars. Or it can stay in cryogenic suspension in the main freezer. I need to go through the odds and ends in there, shortly, to make room for the coming storm of supplies.
   With provisions off the port bow, how are supplies aboard ship? I’ve managed the crisis well, and should make a peaceful transition from one stormy voyage to the next. The extra milk ordered in gave us that lull.
   It isn’t just about the amount of milk there. No. It is the type available. I still dish out the strawberry milkshakes from sachets. But I have to be careful how I mix these explosive ingredients.
   I’m carrying half a sachet of the good stuff over to the next drink instead of using it up on one cup. With everything tasting of strawberry, full supplies in the fridge, I could do a sachet frothy milkshake and then a straight strawberry milk drink in the aftermath.
   But with plain milk, that may be a taste test too far. Can’t take the chance. So I’m rationing the strawberry flavour across the cups. This twist of job description from carer to mixologist is a bit of a sharp turn. But the end result is that drinks are drunk. No liquid food is turned away in disgust, and all is well.
   All is well, until the next text message on the delivery day. The e-mail from food HQ. Then I see if we’ve played Russian Roulette, Tsar-style. There are quirks to the actual delivery itself, though. I’d ordered those six rolls. They weren’t available. So they were sending me those six rolls instead. The same product. I wish they’d pull that stunt with the strawberry milk and just give me the strawberry milk instead. This would save a lot of bother.